We didn't put in ^^ because then we'd have to keep telling people what it means, and then we'd have to keep telling them why it doesn't short circuit. :-/
About this quote
- What does it mean?
- We avoided a certain operator to prevent the need for constant explanations and avoid short‑circuit confusion.
- In plain terms
- We left out ^^ to avoid explaining it and its non‑short‑circuit behavior.
- What can you take from it?
- Simplify language features to reduce user confusion.
Where it applies
Putting it to work
Questions to consider
- When should a feature be kept despite complexity?
- How to balance power and simplicity?
Another view
Sometimes complex operators are needed for advanced use cases.
More from Larry Wall
Any false value is gonna be fairly boring in Perl, mathematicians notwithstanding.
Permalink to quote #91 Anybody want a binary telemetry frame editor written in Perl?
Permalink to quote #93 True, it returns ' ' for false, but ' ' is an even more interesting number than 0.
Permalink to quote #90
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